Rabat – An Israeli-Argentinian man was discovered fabricating a story to claim that he was a survivor of Hamas surprise attack on October 7 to scam people for donations.
Israeli public broadcasting cooperation KAN had posted an interview with Argentinian-Israeli citizen Nico Astroga, who claimed that he was a survivor of the music festival in Re’im.
He also claimed that he witnessed Hamas’ attack, where “29 of his friends were killed.”
The media however removed the interview after the man was never confirmed as one of the people who attended the festival.
Israeli news outlet Walla said that the man claimed that he invited 29 of his friends to celebrate his birthday at a party where “no one survived.”
The news outlet emphasized that the materials that Astroga provided, including photos and video, were from a different party held in 2016.
Kan 11, however, attempted to disassociate itself from the situation, claiming that it had to remove the content only because of “doubts about the details broadcasted in the article.”
The media also claimed that the evidence presented from Astroga were “seemingly convincing.”
But it decided to “immediately remove this article from the network and conduct a thorough investigation.”
The news made headlines among Israeli media as Astroga had received donations from entrepreneur Noam Lanir.
The Jerusalem Post said blogger Daniel Amram exposed the Israeli-Argentinian man.
It also quoted Astroga’s father, who said that his son does not live at home anymore. “We don’t want anything to do with this story… with all due respect, no comment. Goodbye,” the father told Maariv.
The news brought an array of mockery as well as criticism against Israeli media.
“His lie was exposed only because he concocted it to extract financial compensation from the Israeli state. In other cases, Israel has an interest in promoting dubious testimonies like that of the mysterious Yoni Saadon, who said he witnessed 10 Hamas fighters simultaneously raping a woman with an ‘angel face’ on a field,” a commenter on X, formerly Twitter said.
Another one said: “ They just make everything up and even when it’s debunked they don’t stop repeating the lie. Then they say you hate them because you didn’t believe their lie.”
Throughout its aggression in Gaza, Israel has purposefully used unverified claims and unfounded allegations to garner support and sympathy.
However, these claims have been debunked by numerous reports. Additionally, former Israeli hostages who were previously held by Hamas have contradicted Israeli claims. One of the hostages explicitly denied that Hamas mistreated her and fellow captives, stating that the resistance group took good care of them and treated them well.
